Society's ChildS


Cheeseburger

Dad 'unfit parent for refusing son McDonald's'

McDonald
© Getty Images
A Manhattan dad is not lovin' McDonald's right now.

Attorney David Schorr slapped a court-appointed shrink with a defamation lawsuit for telling the judge deciding a custody battle with his estranged wife that he was an unfit parent - for refusing to take his son to the fast food joint for dinner.

"You'd think it was sexual molestation," Schorr, 43, told The Post Thursday. "I am just floored by it."

Schorr says in his Manhattan Supreme Court suit that E. 97th Street psychiatrist Marilyn Schiller filed a report saying he was "wholly incapable of taking care of his son" and should be denied his weekend visitation over the greasy burger ban.

Schorr, a corporate attorney turned consultant with degrees from NYU and Oxford University, had planned to take his 4-year-old son to their usual restaurant, the Corner Café on Third Avenue, for his weekly Tuesday night visitation last week.

But the boy threw a temper tantrum and demanded McDonald's. So he gave his son an ultimatum: dinner anywhere other than McDonald's - or no dinner.

"The child, stubborn as a mule, chose the 'no dinner' option," the disgruntled dad says in the suit.

"It was just a standoff. I'm kicking myself mightily," Schorr said.

"I wish I had taken him to McDonalds, but you get nervous about rewarding bad behavior. I was concerned. I think it was a 1950s equivalent of sending your child to bed without dinner. That's maybe the worst thing you can say about it," he said.

Adding insult to injury, he said: "My wife immediately took him to McDonalds."

Bad Guys

Teen girls file federal suit against school district for allowing years of 'sextortion,' bullying

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Josi Harrison (left) and Laura Lefebvre say they were harassed and abused for three years at Clatskanie Middle/High School by other students and the school did nothing to stop the bullying.
Parents and their teenage daughters, who say they were bullied into sending nude photos to boys at their school, have filed a federal lawsuit against the Clatskanie School District.

The girls say they were harassed and abused for three years and that their school didn't do enough to protect them.

"I thought, why would you ever send a picture of yourself out?" said one of the girls, Josi Harrison. "But what these boys do to you, you feel like you have no option."

They were only 12 and 13 years old at the time, seventh-graders at Clatskanie Middle/High School. The girls say when they tried to go to the principal, the school counselor and other teachers for help, they were told to "suck it up."

The students and their parents gave example after example. Boys were allowed into the locker room while girls were undressed and teachers watched as the girls got slapped in the face.

"That day for the second time, the same student made me bleed - he threw a book at me and cut my lip open," said another girl, Laura Lefebvre. "I went to the principal, and I said this is enough. This isn't how I deserve to be treated. He said, 'Well, we can take you out of the class.' I said, 'That's not fair. That's them winning. I think there should be consequences for them.' He said, 'Well, boys will be boys.'"

The girls' mothers said the school principal refused to protect their daughters.

Laura's mother, Jennifer Lefebvre, said the principal told her "it had to be handled very delicately because he didn't want the harassment and the bullying to get worse than what she deserved. And I said she doesn't deserve this. No child deserves this. And we knew then that it just was a lost cause."

Stormtrooper

Watched cops are polite cops

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© Dai SuganoOfficer Michael Ceballos wears a video/audio recording device during a press conference at SJPD headquarters on Dec. 18, 2009.
Who will watch the watchers? What if all watchers were required to wear a video camera that would record their every interaction with citizens?

In her ruling in a recent civil suit challenging the New York City police department's notorious stop-and-frisk rousting of residents, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the Federal District Court in Manhattan imposed an experiment in which the police in the city's precincts with the highest reported rates of stop-and-frisk activity would be required to wear video cameras for one year.

This is a really good idea. Earlier this year, a 12-month study by Cambridge University researchers revealed that when the city of Rialto, California, required its cops to wear cameras, the number of complaints filed against officers fell by 88 percent and the use of force by officers dropped by almost 60 percent. Watched cops are polite cops.

People 2

Woman sues her employer for forcing her to pump breast milk in a hot, bug-ridden locker room

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© ACLUThe dirty locker room where Bockoras’ employer made her breastfeed.
Bobbi Bockoras has worked at a glass bottling plant in Port Allegany, Pennsylvania for six years. She has two children, one of whom was born recently. Bockoras takes every pain to breastfeed her newborn daughter Lyla. Unfortunately, that includes pumping her breast milk in the only place where her employer, Saint Gobain Verallia, will let her do so - a dingy and sweltering locker room littered with dead bugs.

The Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide a clean, non-bathroom space with an electrical outlet and "reasonable" break time for their workers to pump breast milk for one full year after a child's birth.

Bockoras knows that, so she was surprised when her supervisor first told her to just pump milk in a bathroom. She eventually learned that both her supervisor and Saint Gobain Verallia's human resources department were unaware of the law.

Arrow Down

Las Vegas installs "Intellistreets" light fixtures capable of video recording

The Las Vegas Public Works Department has begun testing a newly installed street light system around City Hall with wide-ranging capabilities including audio and video recording.


According to the Michigan based "Illuminating Concepts," the system's main benefits include "energy management, security and entertainment." The Las Vegas setup includes such features as emergency notification flashers, playable music and a sound announcement system, all controlled from an Ipad.

"Actually, there's a server that's housed by the company that's providing this product and we're communicating with just a wireless, wi-fi connection," Neil Rohleder of the Public Works Department told My News 3.

The company's lights, which also offer a "Homeland Security" feature, received major backlash in 2011 following reports of the system's federally-funded roll out across the country. The feature allows for emergency government announcements which will likely include such slogans as "See Something, Say Something" as well as other irrationally fear-based messages already seen in Wal Mart's DHS-run "telescreens."

Arrow Down

50 venomous snakes taken from church of reality TV pastor


The snakes were in the church of a pastor and reality TV star named Andrew Hamblin.

Hamblin presides over the Tabernacle Church of God and appears in "Snake Salvation" on the National Geographic Channel.

Hamblin quotes scripture as he explains he uses the venomous snakes during his church services and will continue to do so.

"In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents," he read to Fox 19.

Arrow Down

Dying UK prisoners routinely chained to hospital beds

Michael Tyrrell
© Tyrrell familyMichael Tyrrell handcuffed to his hospital bed the day before he died. His daughter took the photograph.

A Guardian investigation has revealed prisoners who are seriously and terminally ill are routinely chained in hospitals despite posing no security threat.

A prisoner who was clinically brain dead remained in handcuffs in an ambulance taking him to another hospital. Another severely disabled prisoner was also chained. Glenda Jackson, his MP, said the practice was "disgusting and horrific."

According to the prison service, inmates who require treatment at outside hospitals are risk assessed before decisions are made as to whether to restrain them or not. But a Guardian investigation shows the use of restraints to be the starting point for prisoners taken to hospital, irrespective of their medical condition.

Examples discovered include a prisoner, Michael Tyrrell, 65, dying from cancer and too weak to move; 22-year-old Kyal Gaffney, diagnosed with leukaemia, who had suffered a brain haemorrhage; and Daniel Roque Hall, 30, suffering Friedreich's ataxia, a wasting disease that has left him barely able to use his arms or legs. All three were chained in hospital and guarded by three prison officers each.

Tyrrell, who was nearing the end of a 29-year sentence for drug offences and regarded as a model prisoner, was taken to hospital from Frankland prison, near Durham earlier this year. His daughter Maria said she and her sisters were horrified to see their father in chains when they visited him in hospital. She said the idea of her father running away was absurd. "He couldn't even prop himself up in that hospital bed. I was pulling him up so he could breathe." The restraints were only removed hours before Tyrrell died.

Butterfly

Wisconsin teen found alive 10 years later, living in Mexico with her three kids

Connie Lynn Mccallister was last seen on August 15, 2004, at the age of 16
© National Missing Person DirectoryConnie Lynn Mccallister was last seen on August 15, 2004, at the age of 16.
Connie McCallister, former honor roll student, wants to come back to U.S. - but is apparently afraid. She wound up in Mexico with her then-boyfriend, broke up and married the father of her children. 'We believe we could be putting her in danger if we say more,' says a member of the church trying to help her return.

A Wisconsin teenager who vanished nearly 10 years ago with her boyfriend has been found living in Mexico, now with three children, police said Wednesday.

Connie McCallister mysteriously disappeared in 2004, and was thought to have run off with her boyfriend of the time, later revealing that she was drugged, taken to the country against her will, and abused.

Wausau police Capt. Greg Hagenbucher told WAOW that McCallister's relationship with her boyfriend ended, and she eventually married the father of her three children - now ages 3, 5, and 7.

Newspaper

Best of the Web: Russell Brand: "God knows I'd love to think the attention was about me but I said nothing new or original"

Russel Brand and Jeremy Paxman
© BBCJeremy Paxman interviews Russell Brand on Newsnight.

Following his appearance on Newsnight, the comedian explains why he believes there are alternatives to our current regime


I've had an incredible week since I spoke from the heart, some would say via my arse, on Paxman. I've had slaps on the back, fist bumps, cheers and hugs while out and about, cock-eyed offers of political power from well intentioned chancers and some good ol' fashioned character assassinations in the papers.

The people who liked the interview said it was because I'd articulated what they were thinking. I recognise this. God knows I'd love to think the attention was about me but I said nothing new or original, it was the expression of the knowledge that democracy is irrelevant that resonated. As long as the priorities of those in government remain the interests of big business, rather than the people they were elected to serve, the impact of voting is negligible and it is our responsibility to be more active if we want real change.

Snakes in Suits

Privatization shill: John Stossel 'upset' poor people aren't selling kidneys for $1,200

Fox Business host John Stossel
© Unknown
Libertarian Fox Business host John Stossel on Thursday said he was outraged that most government services like the military and "organ selling" had not been turned over to private business.

In a segment titled "Time to Privatize," Stossel told the hosts of Fox & Friends that the beauty of privatizing the government was that private companies were easier to fire if they didn't live up to the promise of proving better services at a lower cost.

"There are some things, though, that should remain under the purview of the federal government," host Steve Doocy noted.